Young and Defiant in Tehran. Shahram Khosravi
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perhaps the primary aim in the power system.
Contemporary pastoral power has been reshaped in new and mundane forms. Worldly salvation in terms of health, security, and welfare replace (Foucault 1983: 215) or supplement religious salvation (see also Ong 1999). The “caring power” in Iran emphasizes that sin is a violation not only of divine rule, but also of the sinner’s well-being. The metaphors used in political discourse condemning the “cultural invasion” are often related to the body and health—“injection,” “rape,” “dissipating youth’s energies,” “poison,” and “drugs.”
The Cultural Foundation of Islamic Messages (Bounyad-e Farhangi Payam-e Islam) has published a series of handbooks on how to discover and clear out moral corruption in society. One of its publications, entitled Javanan, Chera? (Youth, Why?) is concerned with masturbation; how to prevent it and how to cure it. The book regards masturbation as a form of addiction that damages the eyesight, weakens the body, reduces the sexual drive, causes loss of memory or even madness, increases agitation, and finally damages the institution of the family (Zamani 1379/2000). In a similar way, gambling is seen as a sin and immoral because it damages the gambler’s household economy (see Sanadjian 1996). It is by demanding “physical and spiritual hygiene” (pakizegi-ye rouhi va jesmi) that the forces of Islamic pastoral power authorize themselves to impose discipline and tutelage upon young people.
Ways of talking about morality and its relation to health are extended metaphorically to the level of the collective health of the Iranian nation or society by the notion of “Weststruckness.” The Parent-Teacher Association (Anjoman-e Ulia va Murabian), a government organization with a “caring mission,” publishes books for parents on how youth should be disciplined and how to counter “Weststruckness.” These handbooks provide good illustrations of how pastoral power stimulates individuals to internalize discipline. In one of these handbooks, which is about the regulation of relations between boys and girls, we read:
We should note that we do not make our child faithful and restrained. She or he alone finds faith and control her/himself. We are just her/his guides. We do not direct our youth away from misdeeds: she/he does it herself/himself. We merely inform them, remind them of values, and explain the strength of willpower. (Ahmadi 1380/2001: 70)
Responsibility for proper self-government, alongside the collective duty of conducting amr-e be m‘arouf va nahi az monkar, draws individuals into the power relations. As Rose and Miller put it, “Power is not so much a matter of imposing constraints on citizens as of “making up” citizens capable of bearing a kind of regulating freedom. . . . [M]ost individuals are not merely the subjects of power but play a part in its operation” (1992: 174, see also Foucault 1997).
The Eye of Power
As an effect of Islamic rule, social space has been partly transformed through attempts to strengthen moral control. Public places are turned into arenas for preventive demonstrations of punishment and are constantly scanned by the agents of the regime for transgressions and cultural crimes. This section deals with the various organizations mobilized for surveillance.
Revolutionary Committees (komiteh) were established in order to maintain Islamic order inside society. When in 1991 the komiteh were amalgamated with the police organization, the basijis became the major guardians of moral order on the streets.
The term basij (mobilization) refers to the militia of volunteers who provided the teenage “human wave” in the war against Iraq. In the early stages of that war Ayatollah Khomeini called upon young men to join the basij, which he called the “army of 20 million,” referring to the 20 million young men in Iran; basijis, however, fought at the various fronts, joining the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Abrahamian 1989: 70). Today, the basijis stand close to the hard-liners of the government. The basiji is the ideal young person (man). As Ayatollah Khamenei described the basiji, he is one
who cares for Islamic values, who is humble before God, who wants to be righteous and pure, who keeps away from moral evils, who struggles diligently for the development of his country and the emancipation of humankind from injustice.26
The last week of November each year (according to the Iranian calendar) is Basij Week, when special ceremonies and activities are organized in order to commemorate the establishment of the basij. Many basijis have military ranks conferred on them during these celebrations, and military manoeuvers are held. There are also sporting contests, a nationwide display of basijis. Among the programs scheduled for the week, basij Youth Clubs offer activities in various areas of interest such as Islamic teaching, as well as art, film, photography, theater, and competitions. The authorities claim that, during the 1990s, the basij has been expanding, and now controls 300,000 full-time men. During the same period its annual budget has increased by a factor of four (Zahedi 2001: 163).
In 1994, some 180,000 members of the basij forces went through ideological and religious courses in order to become better prepared to carry on their tasks of controlling corrupt practices and moral laxness. During Basij Week, basiji teams supervise public places and give guidance (ershad) and correction (eslah). An annual report delivered during the 1995 week claims that the basijis have “managed to give oral guidance to about 1,889,000 people whose families have expressed satisfaction with the constructive move by the basij.”27 In official speeches basijis are thanked on behalf of families whose “immoral youth” have been guided and corrected by them.
TABLE 2. SCHEDULE OF DEMONSTRATIONS AND MANEUVERS, AMR-E BE M’AROUF VA NAHI AZ MONKAR (1999)
The basiji play prominent parts in the maintenance of public Islamic order. Alongside these groups, the police devote a large part of their forces to dealing with “moral issues.” I use the term “moral police” to refer to this part of the police. “Cultural crime” is not very precisely defined in Iranian law but is constituted by any act deemed to be against the cultural principles of the country. Due to this lack of precision, the application of the law regarding “cultural crimes” is left to the discretion of the moral police on the streets. Alongside the permanently patrolling moral police, the basijis sporadically take over the streets and public places to fight against “cultural corruption,” as illustrated in Table 2, which I found on a notice-board in a mosque.
The Islamic Revolution has constructed its “art of government” by engineering a new social order based on Islamic family ethics and values. The social order in post-revolutionary Iran is indeed a juxtaposition of the patriarchal family structure, the morad/morid hierarchical ethos, and the police. Claiming to guard the “health and purity” of the nation as a “protecting” father guards his household, the Islamic governmentality arranged its “caring” politics by conducting its own “normalization” of the Muslim subject. This politics is based on modes of disciplining—e.g., the “panopticon” and punishment—and through the “pastoral modality of power,” guidance (ershad) and correction (eslah). Despite the surface of its politics—referring to “early Islam” and striving after the ideal ummat—the Islamic Republic has had to adapt its social order to the logic of a nation-state: a juristic system with strong elements of centralization and codification, a centrally controlled mass media and education system. The next chapter deals with how this social order has been embodied in individuals in their everyday lives.
Chapter 2
The Aesthetics of Authority
A prisoner’s meekness is a prison’s pride.
—Vladimir Nabokov
Strange times, my dear!
And they chop smiles off lips
songs off the mouth.
We should hide joy in